Jonas and Allie go swimming.

Yesterday was Jonas's first swimming lesson.

Jeff and I are not really into swimming/hot-tubbing/water sports/putting on swimsuits so Jonas and Penny have had limited exposure to being in the water. I think Jonas's first time swimming was back in Escondido and it was with our dear friend Amanda at her parents' place. (Hi, Peets!!!) The second time he was in a pool was when we went to Hawaii last summer. And then when we were in Fresno in May, he went skinny dipping in the pool at the hotel.

3 times. In a pool. EVER. (Yes, we are bad, lazy parents.)

Anyway. When Allie's mom told me about a great deal through Plum District for swimming lessons at Aquatech, we jumped on it. Especially because it's literally a mile from our house and because he could take classes with his buddy/future-prom-date, Allie.

When we arrived, Jonas seemed really nervous; he actually didn't want to let go of my hand! Allie was super happy and talkative before they got in the pool. 

When they got in the pool, Jonas actually did well!

The teachers at Aquatech are awesome. Just the fact that they got Jonas to wear the goggles means that they have special magic powers. 

Allie, on the other hand, wasn't so excited about being in the water... :(

She literally held on to the teacher the entire time. Though, at one point, Jonas was grabbing his hair for support. Poor swimming teacher...

All in all, it was great. Jonas seemed to have fun. Allie didn't have fun in the water, but seemed to enjoy the part before and after the swimming portion. And, the moms got to watch all the action from behind a glass window. It was quite amusing. :)

no gas.

We've been busy with visitors for the last couple of weeks. We had Jeff's parents here for a bit, and then the Chaes came and visited, and just this last weekend we had the Ludwinskis stay with us. 

Having out-of-town visitors means that we get to explore Alameda, go to the beach, eat good food/try new restaurants, and new playmates for the kiddos. We love it!

Unfortunately, our visit with Dan, Ashley and Maddy Ludwinski had to be cut short because our gas got shut off this weekend. Since Saturday, we have not had hot water and cannot use our gas appliances (the stove/oven and dryer). Definitely not ideal for hosting out-of-town guests.

We're doing ok over here so far... Eating out (I definitely don't mind not having to cook!), hanging our laundry up to dry (thank God for our canopy bed!), cold showers/dirty children. It seems that there's a leak somewhere and right now our landlords have had to go into various walls to try to find it. So far, no success; the PG&E people have come twice and still detect gas flow somewhere even with all of our gas appliances turned off/disconnected.

Please pray that we'll continue to have good attitudes about this whole situation. It seems that God definitely wants us to build relationships with our landlord and his family and they have been trying hard to help us in this situation. 

These pictures have nothing to do with anything. Just some photos that Allen sent us from when he came to hang out in Alameda while Clara and I were in Florida...

a peek at our home...

We've been in Alameda for a month now!

Want to see a bit of our still-unfinished space????

When you walk in the front door...

(Sorry, it's kind of messy... I took this picture right after I put the kids down for a nap after I got home from work.)

We got rid of a LOT of our old stuff, even selling some of it and making a profit on craigslist, and were able to really simplify. One of the benefits of moving into a smaller space has been needing to simplify and purge. I love simplifying and purging. (Jeff might say that I love it too much, especially when he is asking me where that box of random cords and wires went...)

We sold both of our old Ikea couches for this new gray sofa from Cost Plus. Ideally, we would have spent more money and gotten a couch from Room & Board but it worked out that the money we got from our old couches basically covered the cost of this new one.  The rocking chair is from our SF apartment ($10 craigslist find!) and the white chair is a standard one from Ikea.

(It's much lighter in person. As you can tell, being on the ground level in a narrow space, the lighting for photos isn't ideal.)

When you're sitting on our couch, you're facing this:

We got that AWESOME electric organ from a thrift store here in Alameda. The green shelf I bought in SF (it holds our records and some books) and the prints and pictures are from various blogs and/or craft shows.

Behind our living space is this:

Yes! It's our DIY dining table! The metal chairs are from overstock and the counter stools were found in the as-is section at Ikea (love as-is!).

Here's our little kitchen:

And here's the view looking out from the kitchen towards the front door:

I have a large mirror and some prints and pictures that I am going to put up on the wall next to the dining table. I also want to do something better with our entry way; right now we have a shoe cubby thing and coat rack, but want to create a little bench or something for that area too.

Thanks for looking! I'll try to put up some more detail shots soon....

excited!

We're going to have visitors this week!

Yes, I totally just stole these from my sister's blog. :)

Karen, Dave, Nora and Alice are coming to Alameda on Thursday! I am really excited to see them and Jeff cannot wait to meet/hold/snuggle/hog Baby Alice. It's crazy that Penny isn't the baby of the family now...

I'm thinking that we'll eat, talk, laugh, play hearts, NOT watch tv (sorry Chaes, we don't have a tv!), play with the kids, go out to SF, walk to the beach, eat dim sum, hopefully find things to do that don't require us to drive because there's NO WAY we'd all fit into one car. It'll be like super fun summer camp, but with 4 kids which may or may not make things more fun.